House of Shrieks

Hi all! So the honeymoon is over and it only took one day. I knew it was just a matter of time before it all kicked in for him. Today has been a combo of fantastically happy giggly times and really miserable eardrum-busting bad times. Most of the bad seem to center around us either leaving the room and leaving him behind, daring to put him down on the floor, sitting down while holding him, not shoveling food in fast enough, taking away the bottle before he has sucked it dry, not understanding that he was hungry again already even though I had just fed him an hour ago, and not realizing that an hour and a half is an adequate amount of playtime before napping again. It's all a learning process we are slowly but surely learning. I have decided, however, that the Bjorn is my new best friend (Thanks, Mer!). After 20 minutes of the previously mentioned earth-shattering screaming, I found that sticking him in there and walking around the apartment worked wonders. He still wouldn't let me sit down or even stand still- except for the three minutes when he was mesmerized by some monkeys on the TV- but anything is better than the shrieking. I am going to be hearing it in my sleep. But really he is just so sweet that I can't be mad at him. Frustrated, yes. Mad, no. And and I have found that he is fantastic when we go out for walks. We went out last evening to the amusement park across the river and walked around for an hour and he absolutely loved it. We watched the roller coaster and the twirly rides and had fun just wandering around watching people eat cotton candy and ice cream and the popcorn lady making popcorn and people playing games. It was really nice and I think we may have some people join us tonight if they can make it. Anyway, I know it sounds like our day was kind of awful but it really wasn't. I was expecting the transition to be much worse than it is- maybe just not so loud. Oh and we made reservations flight reservations today to both Almaty (Tuesday) and home to DC (Saturday). I can't believe that we will be leaving in week. Both of us are really ready to get home and be in our own space, but I will still be sad. I hate goodbyes in general (Peter makes fun of me because I always get all vaklempt when saying goodbye to Carson or whoever when they visit us in DC) but I think that this goodbye will be especially hard. Of course, we are planning on returning in a couple of years for Rinat's sister so I guess it will just be 'til next time rather goodbye. And while we're on that subject, I'm outta here. I have to take advantage of Peter taking over Rinat duty and get something to eat. Bye! -m
Our internet is not working so great again and so this post didn't get added earlier when I wrote it. So I added the above photo from tonight. Two of the other couples met up with us at the park and strolled around until Rinat started telling us it was time for bed. He fell asleep about 1 minute after this was taken. Bye again -m